MENLO PARK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Kespry,
which designs automated drone systems for commercial use, today
announced the close of a Series B equity-financing round of $16 million
that includes investments from DCM Ventures and Lightspeed Venture
Partners. With these funds, Kespry is hiring more engineering and
service teams to ramp-up production and serve customers. In the past
twelve months, Kespry has more than doubled in size, and is moving into
a larger headquarters in Silicon Valley to keep up with the continued
growth.

Goldman Sachs projects commercial drones to be the fastest-growing
portion of the global drone market, with over $20.6 billion in projected
sales over the next five years. Kespry has already seen rapid customer
growth across several vertical markets, and customers include three of
the top five construction materials firms in North America. Other Kespry
customers are leaders across aggregates, construction, and surveying
industries, including Fluor, Lehigh Hanson/Heidelberg,
Sully-Miller/COLAS, Terus Construction, Webcor, Whitaker Contracting,
Woolpert, and many others.

Kespry provides a full-stack automated and integrated drone system that
is easy for companies to deploy at scale. Companies use Kespry drones to
more easily collect, analyze and share aerial information. The Kespry
system saves time and money, while increasing traditional survey
frequency, helping change how customers operate their business. Current
Kespry customers average over ten flights per month, compared to
traditional monthly, quarterly or annual surveying methods.

“Last week we used the Kespry drone to survey three sites totaling over
two hundred acres in less than three hours. We were able to calculate
stockpile volumes, and current conditions of the locations, along with
contour maps and 3D modeling of the sites,” commented Heath Waddell,
general manager at Milestone
Materials, a division of Mathy Construction.

The lead investor in Kespry’s Series B round is DCM
Ventures, a venture capital firm with a portfolio of over 280
technology companies across the U.S. and Asia. “We were very impressed
with Kespry’s demonstrated ability to deliver valuable solutions and
gain meaningful traction across multiple verticals. DCM Ventures is
excited to join the Kespry team and support their global aspirations,”
said Jason Krikorian, general partner at DCM Ventures and co-founder of
Sling Media.

Lightspeed
Venture Partners was the lead investor in Kespry’s Series A round of
$10 million in October 2014, and has made a significant follow-on
investment in the Series B. “As the first investor in Kespry, we knew we
had a truly world class team that would find a way to emerge as the
leader in the commercial drone market,” said John Vrionis, partner at
Lightspeed Venture Partners. “The team has exceeded every sales goal and
they’re blazing a trail on the engineering front. We are privileged to
continue to support the company.”

Kespry has also partnered with NVIDIA
on a new deep-learning module that will enable Kespry drones to
automatically identify and track specific objects, like construction
equipment and materials. “Kespry’s prototype drone with Jetson TX1 is a
vision of the future, when robots and drones will see, think and
navigate on their own,” said Deepu Talla, VP and GM, Tegra, NVIDIA.

About Kespry

Based in Menlo Park in the heart of Silicon Valley, Kespry
is the leader in commercial drone and data intelligence, enabling
companies to better collect, analyze and share information to improve
their business operations. The Kespry Drone System is the most advanced
on the market with a full-stack design and automated customer operation.
Kespry has been rapidly deployed with proven results at dozens of
leading companies across the aggregate, construction and surveying
industries. Founded in 2013, Kespry lead investors include Lightspeed
Venture Partners and DCM Ventures in Silicon Valley. More at www.kespry.com